Mueller examined ‘10 episodes’ of possible obstruction by Trump

William Barr, the US attorney-general, revealed that the Mueller report discusses 10 episodes involving possible obstruction of justice by Donald Trump, as he gave the president a clean legal bill of health on Thursday morning

Transcript

After nearly two years of investigation, thousands of subpoenas, hundreds of warrants and witness interviews, the special counsel confirmed that the Russian government sponsored efforts to illegally interfere with the 2016 presidential election, but did not find that the Trump campaign or other Americans colluded in those efforts.

The Russian government sought to interfere in our election process, but thanks to the special counsel's thorough investigation, we now know that the Russian operatives who perpetrated these schemes did not have the cooperation of President Trump or the Trump campaign, or the knowing assistance of any other American, for that matter.

Again, the special counsel's report did not find any evidence that members of the Trump campaign or anyone associated with the campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these hacking operations. In other words, there was no evidence of the Trump campaign collusion with the Russian government's hacking. Wikileaks then made a series of document dumps. The special counsel also investigated whether any member or affiliate of the Trump campaign encouraged or otherwise played a role in these dissemination efforts.

Finally, the special counsel investigated a number of links or contacts between the Trump campaign officials and individuals connected with the Russian government during the 2016 presidential campaign. After reviewing these contacts, the special counsel did not find any conspiracy to violate US law involving Russian-linked persons and any persons associated with the Trump campaign.

After finding no underlying collusion with Russia, the special counsel's report goes on to consider whether certain actions of the president could amount to obstruction of the special counsel's investigation. As I addressed in my March 24th letter, the special counsel did not make a traditional prosecutorial judgement regarding this allegation.

Instead, the report recounts 10 episodes involving the president, and discusses potential legal theories for connecting those activities to the elements of an obstruction offence. After carefully reviewing the facts and legal theories outlined in the report, and in consultation with the Office of Legal Counsel and other department lawyers, the Deputy Attorney General and I concluded that the evidence developed by the special counsel is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction of justice offence.

Although the Deputy Attorney General and I disagreed with some of the special counsel's legal theories and felt that some of the episodes examined did not amount to obstruction as a matter of law, we did not rely solely on that in making our decision. Instead, we accepted the special counsel's legal framework for purposes of our analysis, and evaluated the evidence as presented by the special counsel in reaching our conclusions.